


Coda (of sorts) 13x22 Exodus

by deltorafray



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 13x22 Coda, Coda, Episode: s13e22 Exodus, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 11:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14617461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltorafray/pseuds/deltorafray
Summary: Let’s pretend for a moment that our Cas took AU!Cas captive.  I want to explore a possible conversation between him and our Cas.  Mild Destiel.





	Coda (of sorts) 13x22 Exodus

**Author's Note:**

> I have a bad habit of writing super open stories and not cluttering my paragraphs with long-winded personal interpretations. I'm kinda hoping people would enjoy that kind of user experience where they can fill in the blanks a little themselves. So, I dunno, keep that in mind I guess :)

Even though it was dark, Cas recognized the angel with the long coat striding out of the back of the abandoned gas station.  Sam, Dean, and Mary had stormed the building to free Charlie and Ketch, and Cas was confident in their abilities to dispatch the remaining angels after he and Jack took on the first wave. This particular angel was something he wanted to deal with himself.  He needed to.

The angel in question was climbing into a the driver seat of a truck, but Cas strode forward to grab the back of his coat, punched him in the face and slammed him against the car, angel blade at his throat.

They had the same vessel.  Jimmy Novak was alive in this world.  There were minor differences in their physical appearance but more noticeable were the differences in their grace, their essence.  This other Castiel was a paper cut angel.  Sliced and torn in strategic places, barely holding it together.  Cas looked at him coldly.  He would feel pity if he wasn’t so disgusted.

“More than … one of us?” the wrong Castiel rasped in a foreign accent.  “Fascinating.”

“I’ve gotten used to it,” Cas quipped

“You align yourself with the humans.”  It wasn’t a question.  Alternate-Castiel’s eyebrows were raised, his words said in wonder.

“I _vastly_ prefer them to angels,” Cas declared challengingly.

“Don’t think that you are better than me,” alternate-Castiel sneered.  “We are the same.”

“Yes,” Cas agreed, dragging the tip of his blade down alternate-Castiel’s throat threateningly. “We are.”

Then Cas cracked the butt of his blade against alternate-Castiel’s skull, knocking him out cold.

 

Cas was staring down at his double when Dean caught up with him.

“Hey Cas, we got Ketch and Charlie-“ He stopped short when saw the figure on the ground. “Holy shit, is that-“

“Me,” Cas answered.  “Or apocalypse-world-me anyway.”

“Is he .. a good guy?” Dean asked hesitantly, still staring at the unconscious angel in wonder.

Cas sighed.  “No.  He was called in to torture Charlie for information.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered, turning away.

There was a few moments of silence, then Cas cleared his throat. “I should … probably kill him.”

Dean whipped his head around to look at him, “Wait, Cas-“

“No!”

Cas and Dean turned around to see Charlie, beaten and bloody, limping her way towards them.  “No.  This douchnozzle reports directly to Michael.  If anyone knows where Michael is and what he’s planning, it would be him.”

“So you want to … bring him in for questioning?” Cas asked.

“Yeah,” Charlie answered, grinning menacingly.  “Give him a taste of his own medicine.”  She paused, looking at Cas.  “No offence.”

Cas shrugged.

Dean gestured between his Cas and the unconscious Castiel.  “And this doesn’t weird you out?” He asked Charlie.

“You know those moments in life where you’re just like, ‘this might as well happen’?” Charlie said.  “That’s where I am now.”

 

“Where is Michael?  What is he planning?”

They were in a cramped room.  A storage closet, it looked like.  It was dark, save for a dim lightbulb swinging from a cord attached to the ceiling.  Alternate-Castiel was bound in their extra pair of angelic handcuffs.  Dean and Cas stood in front of him, angel blades at the ready.

“Ah so you are real,” alternate-Castiel muttered as he came to. “Not one of her tricks.”

“Whose tricks?” Cas demanded. “Naomi?”

“Could still be her tricks.  Who knows?” alternate Castiel cackled. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Cas fell silent as alternate-Castiel continued to cackle quietly.  Beside him, Dean stood grimly, glaring at this deranged version of his best friend.  Cas suddenly felt self-conscious and slightly ashamed.  This is a Castiel with only a few decades of different experiences.  Out of the many milennia that they both have lived, a few years have made such significant differences in their identity and personality.  How easily he could have become this alternate-Castiel.

 _It’s not the quantity of years,_ Cas reminded himself.  _It’s the person – the people – you’ve spent them with_.  The most important of whom is standing next to him, tall and stalwart as always.  Cas felt like hiding alternate-Castiel from Dean.  Cas knew what alternate-Castiel had been through, knew exactly why he was the way he was now.  It’s what had always been done to Cas: reprogramming.  But Cas guessed this had been at a scale that he had never experienced, for alternate-Castiel to look this way.  Cas knew what had been done to this alternate-Castiel, and he knew what this alternate-Castiel had done in turn.  And Cas didn’t want Dean to know about this side of him, the potential of what he could have been.

“Dean, maybe you should step out for a moment.”

“And leave you alone with this nutjob?”  Dean shook his head vehemently.  “Not a chance.”

“Dean,” Cas repeated forcefully.  Dean tore his gaze away from their prisoner to look Cas in the eyes. “He’s me.  I’ll be fine.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at Cas.  They stared at each other for a few moments, daring the other to back down.  Cas raised one eyebrow at Dean.

“Fine, I’ll be right outside” Dean conceded begrudgingly.  He glared down his nose contemptuously at alternate Castiel.  “But he’s _not_ you, Cas.”  Dean left the room, slamming the door closed, leaving the two Castiels facing each other.

“Who is that?” alternate-Castiel asked curiously.

“His name is Dean Winchester”  Cas answered.  He waited, curious if that would mean something to this alternate-Castiel, if the name ‘Dean Winchester’ transcended multiple universes to have some kind of atom-deep effect over other alternate Castiels, because Cas couldn’t imagine a Castiel without a Dean.  Well, Cas guessed, now he could. 

This Castiel seemed unimpressed.  “He’s a hu- human,” he said simply, mouth twitching.

“Yes, he is.”

Alternate-Castiel studied his captor for a few moments and his one good eye lit up in understanding.  “You … _align_ yourself with him.”

Cas narrowed his eyes at him.  The other angel was clearly insinuating something but he’s unsure what it was.

“My loyalties are with him,” Cas declared.  “And with the humans.  They are my family.”

Alternate-Castiel scoffed. “Angels don’t have families.”

“Do I look like an angel to you?” Cas asked, raising one eyebrow.

Alternate-Castiel scrutinized him.  “What happened to you?”

“No,” Cas deflected.  “The question that everyone in _this_ room wants to know is, what happened to _you_?”  Cas leaned forward.  “Do _you_ know what happened to you?”

“I- I don’t,” alternate-Castiel stammered, forehead scrunching in confusion.

“Do you remember … anything?” Castiel pushed, getting up to circle the other angel confined to his chair.  “Do you know who I am?”

Alternate-Castiel’s eyes widened, his mouth started twitching like crazy.  His eyes darted around the room, blinking rapidly. He was muttering something, gibberish in a mixture of English and Enochian.

Cas stopped directly in front of alternate-Castiel, taking his head with both hands in a tight grip, forcing the other angel to look him in the eyes.  “She’s not here,” Cas said firmly, looking into one blue eye and one blinded by countless lobotomies.  “Castiel,” Cas repeated, shaking him a little, making him whimper.  “She’s not here.  You are a shield of God.  And she’s not here.”

Alternate-Cas finally looked up at Cas, his whole body was trembling minutely.  “Wh- what do you want?”

Cas straightened up.  “Information on Michael.”

“So extract it from me,” Alternate-Castiel answered shakily, but plainly, in a manner of someone accustomed to having his thoughts, his memories, his very essence violated and perused at the whims of higher authority angels.

“Yes, I know we like to do that,” Cas said distastefully.  “But I prefer to leave that as a last resort.”

“You are _not_ better than me,” alternate-Castiel hissed suddenly, jerking against his restraints.  “I _am_ the last resort.  I am who they call to find the breaking point others cannot reach.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.  I know, Castiel,” said Cas sadly.  “I know you’re very familiar with breaking points.  Especially your own.  Which is why I’d rather not do it this way.”  Cas glanced at the closed door, behind which stood Dean Winchester, waiting for him.  The man who set Cas apart from alternate-Castiel, the turning point, and the only thing in _any_ universe that mattered.

The longing glance didn’t go unnoticed by alternate-Castiel, “ _Who_ is-“

Cas clamped a hand over alternate-Castiel’s mouth, muffling the rest of his question, and leaned in close.  “I need you to listen to me very carefully, Castiel.”  Alternate-Castiel frowned up at Cas, stilled by the intensity coming from the other angel. “I want you to know that you have done your best.  What was done to you is not your fault.  And what you’ve done is beyond your control.  You have done your best.  You did all you could, but we are _not_ the same.  Dean Winchester is the major difference between you and me.  You would have saved him first, but he would save you in every way that matters.” Cas sighed deeply before continuing.  “And I am so sorry.  I wish there was another way.”

Cas released his hold on alternate-Castiel’s mouth to quickly grab his head between his hands.  Cas’s eyes started to glow and alternate-Castiel started to scream.

“DEAN!” Alternate-Castiel bellowed, in a voice remarkably similar to Cas’s.  “HELP ME!”

The door slammed open as Dean crashed into the room, eyes wild.

“Dean, no!” Cas turned to the door.  Alternate-Castiel took advantage of the distraction to throw his head forward and crack it against Cas’s skull. 

 

Cas stumbled backward onto the floor as alternate-Castiel turned around and charged against Dean, still confined to his chair.  Dean slammed into the opposite wall with a grunt, pinned under the weight of alternate-Cas in his chair.  The flimsy wooden chair broke into splinters between them and with a manic roar, alternate-Castiel pulled at his arms and snapped the cuffs apart.

Dean lost his angel blade in the scuffle, but getting his bearings, he punched alternate-Castiel in the jaw.  Alternate-Castiel’s angel strength barely felt the blow, turning back to grip Dean’s neck in a chokehold and lifting him up off his feet.  Dean’s feet were kicking the air, hands grappling at the iron grip of alternate-Castiel’s fingers. 

“Cas-“ Dean gasped, choking.  Alternate-Castiel was suffocating the life out of him, glaring at him with a face that was so familiar, yet so different with that one injured eye and that manic glint.

And yet, maybe it’s the lack of oxygen, but Dean thought he saw alternate-Castiel squint in that quintessential ‘Cas’ way, then tilt his head to one side, the way _his_ Cas had always done.  Maybe Dean only imagined alternate-Castiel opening his mouth and start to say, “De-“

Because it was cut short by a blood-curdling scream as blinding grace poured out of alternate-Castiel’s eyes and mouth, the tip of an angel blade sticking out of his heart from where Cas, _his_ Cas, had stabbed him in the back.

Dean gasped as air filled his lungs and he slumped down to the floor.  Alternate-Castiel lay dead next to him, mangled, featherless wings seared to the ground.  Dean’s heart started pounding as he was suddenly brought back to kneeling by the cabin in North Cove, Washington, a lifeless Castiel at his feet, having also been stabbed in the back.

“Dean, are you alright?”

Dean looked up at the deep, familiar voice.  No, _that’s_ his Cas.  Alive, and breathing, and had his arm outstretched to help Dean up.

“Yeah,” Dean answered breathlessly, taking Cas’s hand and allowing the angel to pull him up to his feet and into a hug.  Dean shut his eyes, burying his face into Cas’s neck, turning his head away from the lifeless Castiel on the floor, focusing on the alive Castiel in his arms.

 

Cas was sitting on the ledge of the steps to the map room in the bunker when Dean dropped on the steps next to him.  All around them, conversations were getting rowdy as the whisky and beer started to kick in and the rebels, feeling relaxed for once, tried to one-up each other with their battle tales. 

“So,”  Dean said in greeting, handing him a beer.  “Meeting an alternate universe version of yourself.  Trippy, huh.  Been there, man.”  He chuckled.

Cas accepted the bottle but didn’t drink from it.  “Did you also had to kill the alternate version of yourself?”

“Well, no.”  Dean grimaced.  “But I did see the guy get killed.  By Lucifer.  Wearing Sam, no less.”  He shuddered.  “But I mean, I don’t know if they’re the same thing.  It’s not like that was a real world.  It’s more like some weird hallucination Zach cooked up to mess with my head.  These people are real.” He said gesturing at their guests.  “ _That_ Cas was-“

“Dean?” Cas interrupted, placing his hand on Dean’s, making him freeze.  “I want to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything.” Cas smiled. “I think I just got a glimpse of what life would be like – what _I_ would be like – if I had never met you.  You – you and Sam – are the best parts of me.”

Cas’s hand tightened around Dean’s.  His skin was so warm.  Their faces were so close.  Cas could see Dean swallow nervously, his pulse fluttering under his jaw, and his deep green eyes searching his.  “Dean, I-“ Cas breathed.  He’s said it once, so he could say it again right?  No one was paying any attention to them.  Or maybe because he’s already said it, he couldn’t say it again.  Dean’s breath hitched, waiting for Cas to continue.  “- am very grateful.”

Dean smiled.  It was the most beautiful thing Cas had ever seen and he’s been alive for milennia.  He’s seen a world without it and it was so dark.  Cas will forever count his blessings that he lives in a universe that had Dean Winchester in it.  And because he couldn’t help it, Cas leaned forward and kissed Dean softly on the cheek, feeling his stubble prickle his lips.  Cas smiled as he pulled away, pretending not to notice the blush creeping up to colour Dean’s freckles.  Cas took a sip from his beer and got up to join the festivities.


End file.
